Dallas-Fort Worth’s Healthcare Real Estate Is Growing From The Inside Out

The North Texas healthcare industry is one of the region’s top drivers of growth, with expanding systems responding to and encouraging the region’s population boom.

The pandemic reoriented the way people live and work, giving many families the opportunity to avoid long commutes via remote work, making the outer suburbs of Dallas-Fort Worth even more attractive. The population booms beyond Frisco to the north and into Ellis County have prompted massive hospital expansions in Celina and Waxahachie. Meanwhile, the beating heart of North Texas’ healthcare system is also experiencing a construction boom.

A new psychiatric hospital, Dallas ISD school, and Dallas County Lab are about to be joined by a new joint campus between Children’s Health and UT Southwestern. This will create a new flagship hospital for the country’s eighth-largest pediatric system and offer increased access to the state’s top facility.

Here’s a look at some of the most significant projects in the works.

1. Children’s Health + UTSW’s New Pediatric Campus

A new $5 billion pediatric campus from Children’s Health and UT Southwestern in Dallas’ Medical District will span 33 acres across Harry Hines Boulevard. It will connect to Clements University Hospital and sit a couple of miles from the existing Children’s Dallas campus, which the new hospital will replace.

The 2-million-square-foot facility will include two 12-story towers and one eight-story tower. A 28 percent expansion will be made to 552 beds with space for further growth. A larger emergency department and more operating rooms will be complemented by a sky bridge connecting Clements to the new campus. An outpatient building will accompany the joint pediatric campus and add 96 exam rooms to the 344 that already exist at the Children’s Health Specialty Center. The new campus will increase integration between Children’s Health and UTSW, which formed a joint pediatric venture in 2019. Design is being handled by HKS and Perkins&Will.

2. Methodist Celina Hospital 

Celina is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. A $4.5 billion residential development that’s underway there is expected to double the town’s population. The northern end of the Dallas North Tollway has a new hospital on the way, too. Slated to open in 2025, Methodist Celina Medical Center named Cody Hunter as its inaugural president in January.

The $237 million project will be four stories and boast 200,000 square feet on 46 acres. Celina will be Methodist Health System’s 13th hospital and will include a range of services, from cardiac and cancer care to women’s services and robotic surgery. It will consist of 30 medical-surgical beds, 10 post-partum beds, eight intensive care unit beds, 12 emergency department beds, three operating rooms, a cardiac catheterization lab, two procedure rooms, and a da Vinci surgical robot. Perkins&Will is overseeing design.

3. Baylor Scott & White Medical Center–Waxahachie

Baylor Scott & White Medical Center–Waxahachie is addressing a patient increase of 40 percent over the past couple of years with a $240 million addition that is part of a 135,000-square-foot multi-phase campus expansion.

The new six-story patient tower will include an expanded emergency department, surgery wing, intensive care unit, imaging, and a multilevel parking garage. Waxahachie has grown by 25 percent since the pandemic, and a rapid increase in demand for healthcare services prompted the project. In the last five years, the hospital has increased its outpatient capacity by 53 percent, while inpatient visits have increased by 41 percent, and births have bumped up by 25 percent. Last year, Baylor added a heart and vascular hospital to the Waxahachie campus, as well as urgent care centers in the area. The new tower is being designed by HKS.

Source: D CEO Magazine